After the latest newsworthy security breach of over 64,000 Ohio State Employees Identity Information, Ohio has chosen to go with Debix, a leading identity theft prevention service, in order to provide credit and proactive fraud alert based monitoring for all of their employees. We think this is an astute move, considering that traditional credit monitoring as offered by the big three credit bureaus is becoming less effective in deterring hardened identity theft criminals.

This MSNBC video takes the viewer on a walk through online chat rooms where credit information is traded in exchange for cash. With a bank authorized credit card and stopwatch in hand, the reporter times how long it takes for identity thieves to use credit card information released into the “the wild”. The results are astonishing as the credit card is maxed out in a few minutes with illegal purchases pouring in from all around the world.